Abstract

Our project falls under Tiny Earth, an organization with over 500 participating institutions that encourages student research in microbiology with the overarching goal of antibiotic discovery. The rise of antibiotic resistance in pathogenic microbes is a major global health concern, making the discovery of novel antibiotics a necessary priority. Antibiotics are naturally derived from bacteria found in the environment, which teems with abundant and diverse microbes that have yet to be identified/cultured in a lab setting. Our research hopes to find novel antibiotic-producing bacteria in the environment around us. From soil samples located on the Carthage campus, we isolated bacteria that produce antimicrobials with the hopes of characterizing and identifying these microorganisms. Additionally, we hope to isolate and characterize any antimicrobial compounds that they may produce. Isolation of the microbes was accomplished as part of the Microbiology course on campus, and the research is being continued to identify the species of these microbes and extract possible antimicrobials. Antimicrobial activity was initially assessed by performing ESKAPE strain tests with batches of microbes isolated from the soil, some of which were isolated and purified for further testing. After characterizing the microbes with biochemical assays, the identification of microorganisms was achieved through 16S rRNA sequencing. We are currently analyzing the genomes of these species or related species using bioinformatics tools to identify any antimicrobial-producing pathways. Isolation of antibiotic compounds produced by these bacteria is being performed. Our analyses will contribute to the Tiny Earth database of antimicrobial-producing microbes.